A bit of this and a bit of that – in effect something for everyone from the February jobs report yesterday from the Bureau of Statistics.
There were signs of slowing jobs growth to satisfy the gloomsters and unbelievers (in the accuracy of the Bureau of Statistics’ estimates) and there was the fall in the jobless rate to 5.8% to satisfy the believers.
The slowing rate of growth in job creation was clear, and acknowledged in yesterday’s February jobs data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics. There were signs of the slowing emerging in the trend (favoured by the Bureau) and in the seasonally adjusted data (favoured by media and some business economists).
In fact a fall in the seasonally adjusted participation rate helped soften was really a flat jobs report. Without the fall in the rate, the number of new jobs would have fallen in February for a second month in a row. The trend basis of the report was a bit better, but the pace of new job creation is now back to the rate of around six months ago.
While pointing out that “trend” employment growth had slowed in February from the strong levels seen in late 2015, the ABS said “around 270,000“ new jobs were created in the year to February as trend employment growth slowed to an annual rate of 2.3% from 2.6% seen in December. That 270,000 figure was down from the 300,000 in the year to December (restated from the original 312,000).
The trend jobless rate remained steady on 5.8%, with 11,400 new jobs created in trend terms, and the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 5.8% in February from 6% in January after just 300 new jobs were created in the month with a big rise of more than 15,900 full time jobs almost cancelled out by a fall in part time work the reverse of what happened in January when a huge fall in full time jobs was only partially offset by a rise in part time gigs.
Trend jobless rate remains steady
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The most intriguing figure from the seasonally adjusted report was a sharp fall in the number of people unemployed and looking for work. "Unemployment decreased 27,300 to 732,600. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work decreased 18,200 to 525,200 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work decreased 9,100 to 207,400.”
Again the changes in unemployment were the opposite of what the ABS reported in January: "Unemployment increased 30,200 to 761,400. The number of unemployed persons looking for full-time work increased 25,600 to 544,100 and the number of unemployed persons only looking for part-time work increased 4,600 to 217,300".
The seasonally adjusted number of persons employed increased by 300 in February 2016, while the number of persons unemployed decreased by 27,300. The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for February 2016 was 5.8% (down 0.2 percentage points) and the seasonally adjusted labour force participation rate decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 64.9%.
Trend hours worked rose 2.5% last month – they fell 2% in seasonally adjusted terms. In January both measures saw a rise in hours worked.
The participation rate was steady in February in trend terms at 65.1% (revised down from the 65.2% reported in January), while in seasonally adjusted terms the participation rate dipped 0.2% to 64.9% from 65.1% (65.2% originally reported).
